


Qyburn's Monster

by TeamGwenee



Series: Halloween at Casterly Rock [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Crack, F/M, Frankenstein AU, Horror, Humour, Mention of sex but not sexy...at all, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27154840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamGwenee/pseuds/TeamGwenee
Summary: The death of her oldest son introduces Cersei to a new hobby.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Past Jaime Lannister/Cersei Lannister
Series: Halloween at Casterly Rock [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/860544
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	Qyburn's Monster

“He is so useful, I just wanted you to have your own!” Cersei declared, with the bright bounce of an innocent child presenting her friend with a flower crown.

In truth she was actually a thirty four year old mother of three (two alive, one living dead), who was presenting her twin lover with a giant, patched together corpse. 

Jaime blinked, taking in the great monstrosity. Blonde, waxy skinned beneath the grimy sheet and leather straps, and taller than him by nearly a head. Broad shoulders with legs as thick as tree trunks. Her eyes were bright blue and frantic. 

“That was very….thoughtful of you Cersei,” Jaime said uneasily, “I don’t know what to say.”

Cersei’s little ‘collection’ had begun with the death of their son. Cersei’s sadistic little angel had choked on a slice of pie at his own betrothal party, and Cersei had been devastated. How could a boy, so perfect and pure and unbroken, die so suddenly? The shining flame of his light snuffed out like a candle in the breeze of a mummer’s fart.

She fled from the Lannister’s handsome townhouse, taking the body of her boy with her, and retreating into the ancient Casterly Rock. The crumbling remains of their family seat. In the decaying fort looming over the jagged rocks and roaring waves, she lurked with the body of their son. No servants, no staff. Joining her only was the shamed physician, Doctor Qyburn. 

Jaime was on tour during the time of his son’s death. He felt small affection for the boy. Cersei had insisted Jaime keep his distance lest the truth of their children’s birth be discovered, and Joffrey’s vile character did little to tempt Jaime into going against Cersei’s wishes. Nonetheless, the moment he heard of Joffrey’s passing he took himself with all haste to Westeros. Docking at King’s Landing, he met with Tyrion and his Aunt Genna; who had taken young Myrcella and Tommen into her home, and there he gathered the facts of Cersei’s exile.

He knew his twin. Beloved to him as she was, her reasoning was not always the most trustworthy. Nor was her virtue. Lost in the depths of her grief, Jaime feared for what Cersei would do next. Never the most prudent nor kindly of souls, Cersei’s grief was known to kindle into anger, and an angered Cersei was a dangerous Cersei.

Jaime knew that. He just didn’t know  _ how _ dangerous.

Joffrey was first. The perfection of Joffrey’s corpse had placed the idea in Cersei’s mind. But for the stoppage in his throat that kept air from his lungs, he was untouched. Qyburn agreed also. High in the tower Qyburn had claimed for his laboratory, underneath a flashing sky, Joffrey was reawakened. A cruel, sadistic monster. Brainless but for the ability to cause pain and distress to all around him.

A complete success. The boy was unchanged. 

His rebirth planted only further schemes into Cersei’s mind. To bring life back from death was an act of defiance against the gods, and suited Cersei well. Looking around the ruins of her stately home, Cersei resolved her duty was to restore Casterly to its former glory. She had coin from her late husband, enough to invest in the castle and surrounding lands. But labour was costly. 

Corpses, however, were in plenty and required little pay. 

Qyburn magicked up the Mountain first, a giant brute of a man, a soldier freshly home from service after sickening with the Yellow Mare. Qyburn had quite benevolently tended to the brave soldier and soon, Cersei had the most useful of servants to attend to her every need. Clearing the rubble, sowing the seeds and uprooting the weeds. 

‘Twas then she heard of her brother’s approach, and so delighted was she that she commissioned a gift for her beloved twin.

She had some reservations as to the subject, but Qyburn was so excited to work with such a unique female specimen.

And it was not like the reanimated corpse of a woman who had already been obscenely ugly in life would pose any threat.

  
  


Brienne awoke strapped down to a stone plinth with leather, a slight chill in her bones. She twitched, jerking her legs and arms and straining her neck, twisting this way and that to take in her surroundings.

The walls were wet stone, and above she could feel the mist and thin rain brushing against her skin. She squinted, taking in the long tables piled high with all manners of cruelly shaped instruments. What was this place? A barber surgeon’s workroom? 

Last she remembered, she was riding down the cliff path, her steed tumbling over the rocky path and throwing her bodily from her seat. Then there was nought but a sharp pain in the back of her head, and then darkness. 

Her head hurt not, in fact it was strangely light. As though not quite so burdened down by bone. She could feel the wind rattle through the bone and chill her brain as though….as though…

She would have screamed, had her mouth not been gagged.

  
  


“I beg your forgiveness,” Colonel Jaime Lannister said with not a little degree of awkwardness. What was one to say to the living corpse of a young woman, resurrected to be used as his own personal slave? What was the social etiquette for such a state of affairs?

“May I ask the pleasure of knowing your name, good lady?” Jaime asked, more politely than he would any social peer he met in a King’s Landing ballroom, who he would usually treat with his typical scorn. The discourtesy of having dragged the lady from her grave was great and Jaime saw some need for amends.

The creature tugged the rough woollen blanket that Jaime had thrown about her shoulder. She was strapped down still at the waist, for having witnessed both Joffrey and the Mountain, Jaime was reluctant to release any of their ilk until he was certain it had been their own personalities from their time amongst the living that made them so despicable. 

“Brienne,” the creature said warily. “Brienne of Tarth. I came by here, looking for work. Sir, will you tell me how I came to be in this place? I was riding when my horse stumbled and threw me from my seat, but after that I can remember nothing.” 

_ ‘Well, better to get it over with,’  _ Jaime thought grudgingly. “My lady, you are dead. Dead, but alive, brought back by my sister’s physician ‘friend’ to act as my personal slave.”

The corpse-girl’s blue grey face paled to snow white, and her innocent blue eyes widened to comical degrees.

“But I can assure you,” Jaime said hastily, “I have no intention of using you as my slave,  _ whatsoever _ !” 

For some reason, that was of little comfort to the girl.

  
  
  


Alright, so it wasn’t  _ that _ bad. Jaime had handed Qyburn over to the Citadel, giving them a slightly sanitised rundown of his doings, with orders to keep him on a tight leash. Cersei, he arranged to stay with their steel-spined Aunt Genna, in the hopes that some society would help her get over her ‘reanimating the dead to use as slaves’ phase.

Joffrey and Gregor were; if possible, even worse in death than they were in life. Perhaps it was because their undead state had robbed them any minuscule fear they had of divine retribution for their sins. Perhaps it was because their appearances just suited the aesthetic of heartless monsters so much that it would have been a crime  _ not  _ to be merciless fiends. Many a time Brienne and Jaime had to chase them down to Lannisport and steal them away before they could inflict unknown horrors upon some poor unsuspecting soul. 

In the end, both the Mountain and Joffrey had to be sealed away in the bowels of Casterly Rock, with nothing but several large barrels of strong ale per day to keep them entertained. Down there, what little humanity left to them swiftly faded into the darkness, but they were happy, in their own way. They appreciated the beer, at least. Brienne had learned to distinguish the ‘I’m angry, bored and murderous’ groans from the ‘I’ve got a big barrel of beer and a bloody steak so I’m content but still murderous’ groans. And soft hearted undead abomination that she was, she took the care of the monsters upon her shoulders. 

Outside of caring for her murderous pets, she and Jaime amused themselves with tending to the fields, rebuilding small areas of the ruins of Casterly with their own hands, riding and swimming. It was not a terrible life, nor a terrible death. Certainly, others had it worse. 

The only great tragedy was that as their affections grew for each other as friends and companions, so did their mutual desire for something more. Alas, Jaime could not forget that Brienne had been resurrected to be used as his slave, and Brienne was aware that for Jaime to lay with her he would needs be something of a necrophiliac, and she wasn’t sure she particularly wanted to be with a man who would sleep with the undead. The moral implications of such an act was simply too fraught with troubles. 

And yet they all muddled along, until one dark and stormy night Jaime’s horse took a fright when riding along the coast road and sent him flying from his seat. The fall did him no more harm than cuts and bruises, but his foot had most unfortunately got caught in his stirrup and so he was dragged some good hard miles along the jagged coast. 

Brienne had found his body come dawn. After some customary groaning and moaning, she set about studying Qyburn’s notes and instruments, and as the storm and lightning continued to rage above the fallen halls of Casterly Rock, Jaime Lannister was reborn. 

“I’m truly sorry,” Brienne murmured as Jaime examined himself in the mirror. “I did not know what to do...Perhaps I should have left you, allowed your spirit to join the Gods. But I thought perhaps you would prefer to stay here and I...and I could not bear to be without you.” She dropped her head. “I was selfish,” she admitted. 

Jaime smiled wryly, reaching out to pat Brienne’s shoulder with an icy cold hand. 

“Rest easy, Brienne,” he assured her. “What is done is done, and I do not believe I would have chosen differently, if given the chance.”

“You truly do not mind?” Brienne asked, her heart leaping.

“I do not,” Jaime confirmed. “My only regret is that I do not believe the haunting, brooding look suits me so well. I’m a Lannister, a golden lion, I should be tanned. Still, that is not the worst of fates, and it solves that little difficulty that we have been mulling over, does it not?”

Brienne’s cheeks turned a slightly darker shade of purplish grey. “I suppose it does,” she mumbled. “I suppose it does.”

  
  
  


“We have to go up to Casterly Rock again, Tansy,” Rosamund demanded, stamping her feet. 

“And why is that, Miss Rosamund?” Tansy asked her young charge patiently. “We have been by every day this week. Would you not like to go for a walk to the market, today? Or down to see the boats at the docks.”   
Rosamund shook her head. “No, it has to be Casterly Rock,” she said firmly. She cast an eye over her shoulder, and lowered her voice. “You see,” she whispered, “It is not just any old castle. It is a haunted old castle!”

Tansy laughed, shaking her head. “My, what an imagination,” she chuckled. “By the Seven, what gave you such a notion? There are no ghosts in Casterly Rock.”

“There  _ are,”  _ Rosamund insisted. “How else would you explain all the moans and groans we hear every time we pass?” 


End file.
